Actress Joanna Frank recalls being on the set, acting in "ZZZZZ" (an episode of THE OUTER LIMITS), on Friday November 22, 1963 when news was brought about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The making of "ZZZZZ" continued for the remainder of that day and was finished the following weekday.

Frank's recollection got me to think about any film scoring sessions that may have been taking place in Hollywood studios/sound stages on that fateful day.

As far as I can determine, none of the soundtracks I own have been recorded on November 22nd 1963.

Some recording sessions had just been completed in November of '63, like Andre Previn's DEAD RINGER which was recorded on November 13th, 14th & 15th, 1963 (only 1 week before the assassination).

Others commenced in December of '63, such as Leigh Harline's 7 FACES OF DR. LAO and Lalo Schifrin's RHINO!

I'm curious to learn about any recording sessions which were cancelled early on 11/22/63 due to the national mourning. Thinking about all the major American studios like MGM, 20th Century Fox, Samuel Goldwyn, Warner Bros., Paramount, Disney, Columbia Pictures, Universal, etc., I don't imagine there was not any scoring work transpiring during that morning of the assassination.

Does anybody on the Board here know of any such recording sessions?

[I think films which premiered during the 1st quarter of 1964 are the most likely to have been scored around November of 1963. Considering John Frankenheimer's SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (which, for example, was first shown Feb 12th, 1964), I wonder if the initial score by David Amram (which was rejected) was finished before Kennedy's assassination, and if Jerry Goldsmith was commissioned to write a replacement score after the tragedy, perhaps in December 1963 or January 1964?]

Like everyone else who was around in those days, I remember exactly what I was doing at the time. I was a ten year-old in London watching a quiz show on TV, which was interrupted when the infamous news was first announced. The quiz show was "Take Your Pick" which was a big hit at the time and the host was one Michael Miles. I don't recall the theme music though.

Well. 49 years later, does it matter? A filming of an ep of THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW ceased production on that date, from what I've read. I bought a copy of SUPERMAN'S GIRLFRIEND, LOIS LANE number 46 that morning he was shot; I was held out from school because the family went to get overseas shots for our relocation to Tripoli, Libya next spring that morning. And we were in Dallas..

If he'd asked about scores recorded on 22/11/1963 because he was born that day, would there be any issue there? That was my first thought when I saw the header. That day was certainly some people's birthday. Not mine (not yet born), but it's a fair enough question.

John Williams was recording the first Harry Potter score in London on 9-11. The recording session logs show some cues recorded that day. Due to the time difference, I imagine they were nearly done by the time the events of that day got underway.

I create Excel workbooks on many film composers. Within each, I document the dates of the recording sessions. The only sources of information I have gotten on this frequently elusive data are contained in soundtrack notes and album credits. Apparently, this sort of data comes mainly from the American musicians' unions, who've listed the recording dates along with orchestra personnel on their paperwork records.

I imagine that musicians and conductors arrived at the worksite that morning, just like on any other workday, to do the day's work ahead of them. I'm curious, though, if, on 11/22/63, studios continued the day's work until finished or were the personnel permitted to leave early for the day...

There are many things more important, more substantial, than just film music, and this is kind of a "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" kind of thing.

I'm not implying that film music is greater in importance than the events that happened. However, other things did transpire that day.

I'm gathering facts, is all.

For example, if an employee of Company XYZ suffers a death in the family, that Company's payroll dept still requires documentation on the EE's absence in order to issue paid time off in the category of funeral leave.

This is not saying that the Leave Form is more important than the death of the family member.

Data collection should not be misconstrued as irrevernce for the deceased.

When David J. Schow and Jeffrey Frentzen interviewed production crew and cast members for their book THE OUTER LIMITS COMPANION, should they have edited out the portions of their interviews referencing Kennedy's assassination out of respect for the deceased?

The careers of historians, news reporters, archivists, librarians, authors, etc. often deal with unpleasant facts for the sake of proper documentation and authenticity.

The fourth day of lensing on “Funny Man With A Monkey” was November 22, 1963. “I was on the roof of a six-story building, shooting down to see Mickey [Rooney] running through the streets. We had gone up there and were setting up the shot with the Arriflex camera, and the cameraman was ready,” recalled [director Ralph] Senensky. “We were ready to go, and I was calling down, and nobody was paying any attention. Finally, I yelled down, ‘Come on, let’s go, let’s go!’ And somebody was going to call up something, and Eddie Dodds, the assistant director, said, ‘Don’t say it.’ So I went running down these six flights of stairs and what they told me was what had happened to President Kennedy.”

As the news of the assassination broke, Senensky found himself crowded into the backseat of a car with Rooney and a pair of Skid Row derelicts as they strained to hear the radio. “We had one more shot to do, where Mickey runs by and the camera does a strange tilt,” Senensky continued. “Mickey agreed to do that, and then he could not work any more and went home. And then we waited for the studio to dismiss the crew, which they didn’t do. They brought us back in to the studio and called Benny [Gazzara] in, and John Larch. We spent the rest of the day trying to do one short little scene, but but the attention span was just not there. It was terribly difficult, and we sort of muddled through the day. I think they were the only studio that didn’t [send its personnel home early].”

When he finally did return to his rented Los Angeles home that day, Ben Gazzara received a nasty surprise: he walked in on his wife, Janice Rule, in the arms of a mutual friend. The couple soon separated.